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Cook fire, 3 December 2016 Cook

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 15:53 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2016 in Cook, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,695 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 632th largest in Queensland since 2016 (of 1737 with a page). Number 121 in Australia in 2016, of 427.

Burnt area
11,695ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
3 Dec 2016 – 24 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Dec
2016
Heat detections
483
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415161718192021222324

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high
49km/h · peak gust
32%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.2 mm on 28 Dec.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Cook where it started
    11,755 ha reached on 3 Dec
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
3 Dec 33.5 °C 35 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
4 Dec 31.4 °C 49 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
5 Dec 32.5 °C 47 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
6 Dec 32.5 °C 44 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Dec 33.5 °C 33 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
8 Dec 33.4 °C 48 % 44 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 20
9 Dec 33.6 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
10 Dec 33.5 °C 41 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
11 Dec 33.7 °C 41 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
12 Dec 33.5 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
13 Dec 31.9 °C 53 % 46 km/h 2.2 mm Low 8
14 Dec 33.9 °C 48 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
15 Dec 33.1 °C 50 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
16 Dec 36.1 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
17 Dec 36.4 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
18 Dec 35.4 °C 44 % 38 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
19 Dec 35.3 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
20 Dec 33.2 °C 47 % 44 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 19
21 Dec 33.6 °C 46 % 46 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
22 Dec 34.4 °C 39 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Dec 33.5 °C 47 % 45 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
24 Dec 34.4 °C 43 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm High 22
25 Dec after 33.1 °C 47 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
26 Dec after 32.8 °C 45 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 21
27 Dec after 32.8 °C 48 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 21
28 Dec after 27.7 °C 68 % 25 km/h 7.2 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 26 Nov 2016
After · 31 Dec 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 483Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Cook fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2016 and 24 December 2016: 22 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 11,695 hectares (117.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Cook (11,755 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 32 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 24, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 000

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 000.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.